Do what God says

New Guest: Like this one, most posts are devotional; those related to CAR BIZ can be found by searching for that title. You might start with 'Welcome,' the first post in the archives, dated November 12, 2008, where I introduce myself and the blog.

Thursday, October 1, 2009
Devotions: Ps 105; 2 Ki 18:28-37; 1 Cor 9:1-15; Mt 7:22-29

Come before God with songs of thanks and praise. Tell the world of His wonderful works; glory in His holy name. Seek YHWH and His strength; see His presence continually. Recall His amazing deeds. He is YHWH our God; He keeps His covenants—those with all the children of Abraham. He has chosen a people for Himself and has sustained us throughout the millennia. He has allowed us to be tested and strengthened by the trials we face; and He sustains us in His grace, His steadfast love and faithfulness. The Psalmist reviews the history of Israel in Egypt, the plagues, the Exodus—God’s faithful deliverance. He still leads His people with joy and singing and protects us along our pilgrim way. All praise to the Lord!

The Assyrian delegate loudly addressed the inhabitants of Jerusalem, despite the request of the Jewish delegation to speak with them in Aramaic. ‘Don’t let Hezekiah fool you; he can’t deliver you from the grasp of my king. Make peace with Assyria; I’ll put you in a good land, with your own vines and fruit trees and plenty of water—a land with bread and vineyards, olives and honey, where you can live, not perish. Don’t listen to the nonsense that YHWH will deliver you—no god of any nation has delivered his land out of the hand of Assyria’s king!’ But the people were silent before his harangue, as their king had commanded. The Jewish delegates tore their clothes and reported the Assyrian’s words to Hezekiah, the king of Judah.

Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians, ‘I am an apostle and free; I have seen the risen Jesus our Lord. Your community is the result of my evangelistic work under the Lord. To you above all others I should be sealed as an apostle. Barnabas and I have the same rights as other apostles—we could demand support from the churches; we could travel with wives, like Peter and the human brothers of Jesus do. But we support ourselves—as if we were soldiers fighting at our own expense, or farmers who grow for others but don’t eat of their own harvest, or shepherds who gain nothing from the flocks they tend. Torah teaches that we have a God-given right to your material support. But we have declined to demand our rightful claim on you. We endure anything rather than put any obstacle before our Lord’s gospel. Though the Lord Himself commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel, I don’t want it, and I am not requesting your material support. I would rather die than have anyone pay me and thereby take away my ground for boasting.'

Jesus preached: ‘On the day of judgment, many will say to Me, “Lord, Lord, did not we prophesy in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and do miracles in Your name?” And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you. Depart from Me, you evildoers.” Everyone who hears My word and enacts them will be like a wise man who built his house on bedrock; when the rains came, floods rose, and the winds beat against that house, it remained standing, because it was built on rock. But anyone who hears My words and fails to do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon sand. When the rains, floods and winds came and beat against that house, it fell, and great was its fall!’ When Jesus completed His proclamation, the crowds were astonished—He taught as One with divine authority, in total contrast to the teaching of their scribes.